CONTRACTOR READINESS FOR UTILITIES
False Confidence
A single worker lacking the proper qualification can introduce catastrophic risk regardless of the contractor’s company-level safety rating. The future of contractor management lies in integrating organizational prequalification with worker-level verification.
Written by James A. Junkin, MS, CSP, MSP, SMS, ASP, CSHO. Chair of the Veriforce Strategic Advisory Board and the past chair of Professional Safety journal’s editorial review board.
What the paper shows
Why approval and readiness are not the same thing
A scorecard rates the company
It says nothing about the person walking onto your site today, or whether they are trained for the task and cleared for that location.
Every metric looks backward
Injury rates, citation histories, and experience modification rates all measure what already happened. None verify present competence.
Approval is a point in time
A contractor is cleared months before work begins. In between, people turn over, certifications expire, and requirements change.
Utility work leaves no margin
Crews work high-energy systems where a small gap in a single worker’s qualification can have immediate and fatal consequences.
Contractors do not perform work.
Individual workers and teams perform work.
Read False Confidence
Why contractor-level scorecards are not enough to prevent serious injuries and fatalities in the utility sector
About the Author
James A. Junkin, DOSH(c), CSP, MSP, SMS, ASP, CSHO is CEO of Mariner-Gulf Consulting & Services, chairs the Veriforce Strategic Advisory Board, and hosts The Risk Matrix podcast. ASSP named him its 2024 Safety Professional of the Year for Training and Communications.